225 x 127. These are the magic numbers for building a great Strutta contest, and you can do it yourself in just minutes if you follow these tips:

Getting Started

Click the "Create A Contest Now" button on any page (it's on this page, at the top right). You'll be taken to the pricing matrix. For the purpose of this exercise, we are going to choose the "Basic" or free option from the grid. You will have to either create an account or sign in at this stage, so follow the prompts and you'll be taken back the first phase of contest creation:

1. Contest Type. Select your chosen media submission types from the pretty icons. Your choice of: video, photo, text, audio or mixed media submissions. For the sake of this demonstration, choose any one of these and click the save button.

2. Now we're into the fun stuff, the "Look and Feel" options. Select one of the available templates, paying special attention to the backgrounds, the location of the sidebars, the color of the voting buttons, etc. If you click the small magnifying glass in the theme thumbnail images, you'll be able to view a larger preview of that template.

We also now have the ability to add some custom images or videos to our contest. Here is where our magic numbers of 225 x 127 come in handy. That's the available size of the "Contest Logo" block, so browse and upload to your 225 x 127 contest image and upload it. Allow a few moments for the progress bar to complete before starting the next step. When that's done, you can choose an option of having an "Intro Photo" or an "Intro Video," and then upload the applicable file.

Tip: For best results, use a widescreen video. Regular non-widescreen videos are ok too though, so no worries there. If you're uploading an image, for best results use a 640 x 360 image to promote your contest in this space.

Click "Save and Continue" when your uploads are completed.

A Contest, By Another Name...

3. Next you're taken to the "Summary" page, where you will select your contest title, summary and description. In the plain-text description field, be sure to share any contest-specific rules and guidelines (ie. Videos no longer than 2 minutes, etc). Enter your name as Contest Organizer and fill out the address field.

With the free option, you can create your contest as a sub-domain of Strutta, for eg. http://AnyDamnNameYouWant.Strutta.com. If you wish, select the custom domain option, and follow the directions given. Just remember that you'll have to pay the $25 domain upgrade before launching the contest.

Strutta will generate a Contest Rules document for your contest for no charge, you just need to select what region you wish. Canada (excluding Quebec) and the US are available. Make your choice and click "Save and Continue."

Taking a Look at Your Work

4. You've come a long way already, baby. You should now be on the "Voting" tab, but before we continue, let's click the "Preview" button on the top right and see what we have so far. A new window will open, and you'll be able to preview your contest. Everything look ok? Are you sure? Because sometimes contest names and summaries are a bit too long. To make everything looks nice, make sure these two fit on one line each in the design (I like it to look that way, anyhow). If you're happy with how things look, let's choose some voting options. For the sake of simplicity, let's choose a basic popular vote option, wither either the 'Vote Count" option (voters can vote once for each entry) or the "5 Star Rating" (voters can rate each entry between 1 and 5 stars). Carefully select the contest start and end dates for your contest, and decide on a number of winners.

Note: For each "Winner" you add, you will be required to enter a prize, and approximate retail value for each in US dollars. The prize images are, you guessed it! 225 x 127.

5. In the "Options" tab, you have the ability to add any number of sponsors and survey questions to your contest.

A note about sponsors: When uploading the sponsor images, we find its best to make them all on uniform size. As you might have already guessed, using 225 x 127 image sizes will make you a nice row of four, eight or 12  sponsors to anchor your contest. If you wish to use just one sponsor image, make it a single banner that spans 950 x 127 for best results.

A note about "Survey" Questions: You can add as many as you like, but too many will scare people off, so be careful! It's a good idea to ask at least one, and here's the one I suggest: "Yes, it's ok to add me to the <Contest Creator's> newsletter." (y) (n).

6. When you're finished with all of that, you're on the final stage, "Launch." You'll be asked to agree to the terms of service, and then you can launch your contest to the world.

More notes: You can preview your site at any time, you need not wait until step 4 as I've suggested. I have it that way because after Step 4, you can view your template design as well as the contest name, etc. You may however preview the work-in-progress at any stage of the process.

Once launched, your contest site has a number of promotional features built in. Namely, the ability for any entry to be shared through a number of services and email (see the "Share" button below each entry) and the ability to embed a submission on another site (yes, that's with the 'Embed" button below entries).

Try it out, see what you think. It costs nothing to follow these instructions to create a free contest to test amongst your friends. See if Strutta has what you're looking for. We offer a number of custom options and upgrades too. If you find that you have questions, don't hesitate to address them to us using our contact form and we'll follow up as soon as we can. Our "Tour" page can be helpful too when you're first getting set up, so have a look there for even more help with setting up your first online contest using user generated content!

Twiistup 5 is coming soon, but you can already check out the Showoffs in the Twiistup5 video contest.

Strutta is proud to partner up with Twiistup to bring you these 10 contenders, but don't waste any time, click through at one of the links below to vote for:

Cogi

Viewdle

FixYa

Meebo

TheScene

Yammer

CauseCast

eHow.com

GoGreenSolar.com

RoboDynamics

On the night of the event, votes cast be party attendees will tabulated, and the panel of celebrity judges will make their picks as well.

But you too can have your say in who you think is LA's hottest new startup, or make your best guess as to who will take top honors at Twiistup 5. Once your email is verified, you may vote one time for each entry.

There are still a few days left to cast your vote for which charity should receive the grand prize cash donation from the Give a Better Life Foundation. The contest ends Sunday, so get your votes in now. You are eligible to win a coffee maker, coffe and and some fine chocolates, so don't delay.

On February 12, the winner will be announced at "Party with a Heart," a gala presented by the Give a Better Life Foundation. We'll be there for sure; we've been extremely proud to team up with Sarah and the Give a Better Life team, and will be great to see the winners announced and receive their prizes.

If you would like to join us or bring your own group to the gala, tickets are still available by purchase through the Foundation's site. Come out and show your support for these 11 great national and local charities. There will also be a silent auction with some exciting items, so be sure to attend, darlings!

It's been several weeks since we first started launching contests built with our platform. Before the inevitable flurry of activity that our launch will create, I though it would be a good time to give updates on some of the recent ones.

1. Operation Gratitude "Letters to Our Troops." We start with OpGrat because the contest is still live, and there are only a few days left to submit your letters to the troops in time for them to receive them this holiday season. This one is one entry per email, but you may submit as many letters as you wish, and THAT is what it's all about. As it stands now, the promotion has generated more letters than in any previous year, but they're still short of the 50, 000 or so that they would need for each care package they'll be sendng to the troops this Christmas. What are you waiting for?

2. Boston Pizza "Designer Pizza Vote" contest. As we've already announced, this one ended a few weeks back, and now a winner has been announced. Bryan Hayter of Woodstock Ontario will be enjoying a free large pizza every week for a year, the lucky devil. 

3. Give a Better Life Foundation "Vote for Your Cause." Launched just a short time ago, this is already gaining loads of traction. Because there are 11 great charities involved, there has been a flurry of voting activity for all of them among their supporters and friends. Visit the site and cast your vote for your favorite charity today while there's still time. 

4.Jiibe and Capulet's "Jiibe Connection." Created by Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo of Capulet Communications for their client Jiibe, this little number (that features a videoby GiantAntMedia) is already getting talked about in the HR community. Of all the contests we've built, this one is the easiest to enter. Just make your choice, enter your email address and you're entered to win an iPod Nano. 

Over the next few weeks, you'll be seeing more examples of Strutta contests, but they'll built by some of our friends, who will be the first to access our wizard, which should be very exciting to watch unfold. 

If you have questions about these or any other contests, don't hesitate to get in touch. 

The soon-to-launch "new version" release of Strutta puts all the power of our technology into your hands.

Whether you are a competitive video creator looking to host your own contest, a marketer wanting to create a UGC (user generated content) contest for a client, or a brand manager that wants a fully customizable contest platform API, the new Strutta will have something for you.

Just yesterday our development team turned a corner that represents a very significant milestone. They sat back in their chairs and started evaluating the mostly-finished product, making the finishing touches before we give you a first glimpse in just a few days time. The good news is that this will free up our beloved team to start telling you the story of how this is all coming together. Over the next two weeks I'll be coaxing them out into the sunlight, and each will share a few notes about our process or our product from their perspective. 

In addition, the "look and feel" of this blog will seemingly change overnight sometime in the very near future, to better match the elements we've already released (see inset photos). When that happens, expect nothing less than total "Strutta team" access via our blog. Our Sr. User Interface Designer Ross Howard-Jones has built a new theme for Drupal that will give you access to such basic blog features as: Search! Archives! Photos! And if I can help it, regular contributions from team members not named Jordan.

Thanks again for your pateince while we prepare to launch. Remember that we're always listening, so if you have any questions or feedback, you can leave them here as comments or hit us up on our contact form.